Integrating products into already built html pages

[tridean]

Hello,
I have spent the last few frustrating days trying to find a cart solution for my site which I plan on moving soon to a new host. This means I am going to have to install and set up my cart from scratch.

I was hoping for some help.

I would like to know if Zen cart allows you place products on already built and designed html pages. An example of this is here
http://www.onlinediscountmart.com/fisotwil.html

Each of the pages are content rich and have the products embedded into the main page.
This may sound like a silly q to some and I'm sorry. This may have been asked beofre and I should probably do a search but I am flat exhausted.

Thanks for any help
Cheers
Dean

[kobra]

The basic answer is no. ZenCart is not modular and one can not just use the pieces that they want.

But better to ask yourself, "Why do I want to continue to have to maintain all these html pages" for every new product or changed product you have to create a new html page, and then adjust the access UI to integrate this new product and , and...

ZenCart being serverside and pages built dynamically, handles this for you. Add a product and the product listing page, the product info page, the new product page, a featured item page, a special item page and others are all automatically built for this item and all others as well. A few clicks and text entry and it is all handled for you.

Think long term. I know that you feel that you have a lot invested in the html site but you will continue to pay with time in maintenance with it. Time to move to a dynamic server side site.

[tridean]

Hi Kobra,
I thankyou for your response as help has been very hard to come by.

May I ask you something as I'm a little confused.
My web site is over a year old now but has got to a stage where now it ranks as #1 and 2 for a lot of pages on msn and Yahoo and i'm now just starting to crack the top ten on google for a few.

Lets just say that I have pages optimized for say 'dolphin figurines'. If I let go of pages such as this, I let go of all the work I've done to get the free traffic I now get.

The thing I'm trying to accomplish is to do what my competitors are doing and that is to optimize their pages for certain categories but also to list their products on the same page.

But having said all of this, can i have a list of dolphin figurines, under a category called dolphin figurines, and be able to freely add whatever content i want to that page. It seems my competitors can do it, and if it works for them then I sholud be able to do the same.

I will admit, I am green when it comes to carts, and when I read you last paragraph and the line "Time to move to a dynamic server side site." i just don't know what that means.

Thanks again
Dean

[kobra]

I can not speak as to what your competitors are doing...

But as stated ZenCart is not modular and therefore the things that add to cart etc can not be just pasted into your html and work. There are validation(session) and security reasons for this.

When I stated the it might be time to move...what I was referring to is in the "Old" days, each page was written with html, with links etc. and in a large site this could mean 100's of pages that one must maintain. If you add an item there is several pages that you must edit to include this additional item.

In a serverside script like ZenCart, these pages are automatically generated immediately after you add the item through the add product page. They have the correct header, the image, the details, the footer etc. As these pages are created from the predefined pieces.

I know this is an over simplified description.